Thursday, September 24, 2009

Pay The Kid To Sauce Your Lemonade Day!

You threw one too many punches, kissed one too many dames when they weren't looking, threw up one too many times on the pool table right after the felt got changed, and so you finally got thrown out of Murray's for good.

Nowhere else to drink in this neighborhood. What's your day gonna be like with no bar to belly up to? Who's gonna pour your sauce and ask you what's what?

Wait a minute. That yellow-headed kid on the corner selling lemonade to pay for his mom's prescriptions. He's looking for customers!

You slap a buck on his cardboard counter top and you say, "Pour."

He does. You sip. Then spit.

"Weak," you say.

"I can add more sugar," the kid says.

"Nah, nah. Wait a minute," you say. You slap a five on the counter. "Sauce it."

The kid just stares at you.

"Ain't got no sauce? Hang on."

You head to the corner and buy the best pint of vodka five dollars will allow.

"Here you go," you tell the kid. "Pour me another, but fill the cup with that halfway."

The kid says, "I don't know."

"Look son," you say. "I need a bar and I need a bartender or else I'm just a ship at sea. You're gonna have to take the job. You'll learn quick you sauce a guy like me, he'll keep giving you his money till you throw him out, and you will throw him out. Trust me."

You slap two bucks on the counter. The kid pours. You drink.

"Gimme that stool. Ain't sitting on the grass. Bartender works on his feet anyway."

The kid gives you his stool and you sit.

"Hope it don't rain," you say to the kid.

The kid says, "Not likely to I reckon."

Then you spend the next ten hours silently staring at the hedge just past his shoulder, trying to think back to 1973 and remember Gina's hips.